60 ,... , "'w....;: So I ß." ;/ . . . ; " $:' -.,. ,. , f "./ *.' . '. 1 . '\ w .oJ ,. .... f., , "'" ' >" h v '* i j, . \:, *,. * t ". \ J ;.. . ". '.s' 1:' / I ! / y. . <- $ J. "f Þ p->ØJ< 'IS .; p. )< < *: :s:' f' J . s 'ý ... .. '.. '. ,y J'I/'>I' J'I/'>I' JV\IV' OJ' -ñ ''1 ,/ s; / ../ .''V 44: '.' "='.' . . /. . /, '.,. ,y .,. You can walk from our beach to the finest shops in the world. In our backyard we have a white sandy Florida beach as big and wide as three soccer fields. And outside our front door you'll find Neiman- Marcus Saks Fifth Avenue, Martha, Gucci, Cartier, Lillie Rubin - 40 of the world's most fashionable shops What's more, when it comes to dining and entertainment, we feature a spectacular musical revue in our Bal Masque Supper Club. A four-star restaurant. Plus lively music, live entertainment and dancing in our Emerald Lounge every night. Right no you can stay with us for as little as $42.50. So see a travel 50 * agent for reserva- A 2 tions,orcall our toU për"" free number toda person · Per night, per person, double occupancy. ChIldren 17 and under in same room as parents, free. Rates subject to change wIthout notice CalIBOO-325-3535 .In MIssouri call 800-392-3500. -' \_ò) #- / I S " t 8 Sheratòíî BalHarbour SHERATON HOTELS & INNS, WORLDWIDE 9701 COLLINS AVENUE BAL HARBOUR FLORIDA 305/865-7511 / / surgeon at the Johnson Space Center, believes that landing an orbiter after a relatively long mission might be a tricky matter. "I don't like the idea at all," he said recently. The astro- nauts tend to minimize such difficul- tIes. Captain Joseph Kerwin, who spent twenty-eight days in space as science pilot of the first Skylab crew, points out that jet pilots sometimes suffer from vertigo-they might think they are in a steep, banking turn when in fact they are going straight-and have therefore learned to rely on their instruments rather than on their own sense of balance when their vision is blocked, and he says he is sure that the shuttle astronauts will, too. Captain Kerwin, who is a doctor, feels, as many other doctors do, that if the as- tronauts eat better and get more rest while they are in space (astronauts have often skimped on food and rest in the past) they will be in fine condition for the landing. The best safeguard, though, may be that the early missions will last no more than seven days, and there may be no thirty-day missions until the next decade, by which time many of the problems may have been solved. Like Kerwin, Haise doesn't expect any trouble-for Young and Crippen or for anyone else. When he was asked whether an astronaut might miss the moment of pulling up the nose at twelve hundred feet, he said, "You could do it with your eyeballs in good weather. Also, you have those displays on the window in front of you. So you'd have to be blind and deaf not to flare at the right time." As it happens, Haise himself ran into a minor problem the third time he landed the orbiter: after he pulled up the nose, the craft still had too much energy-it was go- ing about twenty nautical miles an hour faster than he expected-and as soon as the wheels touched down it skipped back up into the air. Luckily, after it touched down again and skipped again, it settled down for good. Ideally, with the craft travelling horizontally at two hundred and ten nautical miles an hour a few feet above the ground, all Young wi]] have to do is ease upon the stick and let the wheels settle down. (If all goes ac- cording to schedule, the landing for the first flight will take place on March 19th at 10:53 A.M.) The craft may coast a mile farther before it rolls to a stop. The runway will have been swept clean by motorized street sweepers; otherwise, pebbles might be kicked up, smashing the brittle ther- mal tiles on the craft's underbelly Because the tiles are so fragile, no on aside from the ground crew will be a - lowed anywhere near an orbiter after it has landed; later, mechanics will at- tach suction cups to the tiles and pull to see if any of them have come loose. As soon as the orbiter stops, it will be surrounded by a fleet of NASA cars, trucks, and fire engines, as well as equipment for cooling the craft against any residual heat from entry. T ANDING may be the most novel L part of a shuttle mission, and the one that most strongly influenced the shuttle's design, but the orbiter's main purpose is to be in space. The first mis- sion will be short, only fifty-four and a half hours, including two nights in or- bit. While the astronauts are flying over the United States on their first or- bit, they will open the cargo-bay doors and perhaps televise some of the sights back to earth; they will spend the rest of the day setting up the craft and doing a few flight tests, as well as carrying out the O.M.S. burns that will raise the orbit to a hundred and fifty miles; before they go to bed, they may do an- other television show The next day, they wi]] have a rehearsal for returning to earth, including closing the cargo- bay doors and opening them again; do another TV show ( a guided tour of the cabin); practice putting on their space suits (though they will not go outdoors for a spacewalk); perform some more flight tests; and, before going to bed, put on yet another TV show (this time a guided tour of their living quarters). On the last day, they will close the payload- bay doors again and come home. Later flights will be more ambitious. On an ordinary operational mission after the four test ones, the crew members will probably get up each morning at about six, Houston time; the exact moment may vary from one mission to another, for the missions themselves will vary more than they have in the past. When more than four crewmen are aboard, the crew members will have to stagger their sleeping and working hours so that they don't get in one another's way. In size, the shuttle is no Skylab The as- sumption underlying Skylab's design was that if people lived in space for long periods they should have the